Dominant group members' experiences of entitative subordinate groups : the role of valence and variance in subordinate group collectives
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines how highly entitative subordinate group collectives may induce a threat of status loss among dominant group members. Extending past research on entitativity to the context of hierarchies with more than two groups, I explore two factors that may increase dominant group members' perceptions of subordinate group collectives' entitativity: 1) Positive attitudes between members of subordinate groups, and 2) The homogeneity of subordinate group collectives. The first chapter of this dissertation examines the possibility that White Americans experience a threat of losing their dominant group position when they learn about positive (as compared to negative) inter-minority group attitudes. I argue that inter-minority group harmony signals the existence of an entitative superordinate minority category, which can more effectively challenge the status quo hierarchy. In initial support of this, I found that Whites' perceptions of Black-Latino relations are positively associated with their perceptions of Blacks' social standing relative to Whites (Study 1). Across three experiments, I found causal evidence that Whites' perceptions of positive inter-minority group attitudes lead to perceptions of greater minority collective power (Study 2), and this relationship is partially mediated by Whites' perception that minorities share a common in-group identity (Studies 3a-c). Furthermore, consistent with the idea that positive inter-minority group attitudes induce a threat of status loss and motivate dominant group members to reinforce the hierarchy maintenance, Study 4 found that pro-dominance Whites oppose affirmative action in response to learning about positive, as compared to negative, inter-minority group attitudes. The second chapter explores how White Americans perceive and respond to collectives composed of members of multiple minority groups (e.g., an Asian-Black interracial couple) as compared with collectives composed of members of a single minority group (e.g., a Black couple). Given that heterogeneous collectives are likely to be perceived as less entitative and thus less hostile than homogenous collectives, I hypothesize that Whites will judge multi-minority collectives more positively than single-minority collectives. In support of this prediction, Study 5 found that high-dominance White college students judge multi-minority group student organizations more positively than single-minority group student organizations. Additionally, a large-scale field study of White wedding planners found that Whites respond to emails from Asian-Black interracial couples more quickly, using with more words, compared to emails from Asian and Black same-race couples (Study 6). Implications to literatures in intergroup relations, social hierarchies, and diversity are discussed.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Jun, Sora |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. |
| Primary advisor | Lowery, Brian S, 1974- |
| Thesis advisor | Lowery, Brian S, 1974- |
| Thesis advisor | Halevy, Nir, 1979- |
| Thesis advisor | Laurin, Kristin |
| Advisor | Halevy, Nir, 1979- |
| Advisor | Laurin, Kristin |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Sora Jun. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Business. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Sora Jun
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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